The Yeast of our Problems
by Seregunda
Summary: Once she realised that something was very, very wrong with the little boy in the empty apartment across the way, she decided that if he was doomed to die then he is first going to live. Gen-fic, story-oriented.
1. Chocolate Orange

This fic, though there may be romance later, possibly, will not rotate around the be all and end all love interest. This story will mostly involve character development, and mild psychological delving. No ridiculously overpowered oc's, but the presence of a small few oc's should be noted.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing!

'Even if you fall on your face, at least you're still moving forward. Not like when you fall on your back.' At least, that's what Tsubame's Grandmother had always told her. That piece of wisdom, along with the sage advice of 'Well dearie, you could always take your clothes off for money.', were all the young woman had left of her Grandmother upon entering Konoha.

"Name?" Tsubame jumped, failing to hide it from the two snickering chuunin at the gate. They were young, probably little more than twelve or thirteen years old, and probably new to gatekeeping. Definitely new to the early morning shifts, if the bags under their eyes were any clue, along with the occasional glare at the rising sun overhead.

"I'm Tsubame. I've got my passport here." She fished her papers out of the front pocket of an oversized rucksack and handed them to the boy with black hair feathering outwards in spikes, who also had a bandage plastered safely on his nose.

"Thanks. What's your business in Konoha?" The boy with floppy brown hair and large soft eyes asked, adjusting his hitaiate which was still relatively unscathed. Not that Tsubame knew much of anything about shinobi, for all her knowledge they could receive new gear more or less constantly. "Planning to move here. Needed some space from the family, figured a whole new village would be a good idea." Tsubame answered easily, no reason to lie.

Tsubame loved her family, but Kami above they needed to give her some amount of space. Thousands of kilometers would probably work. Maybe.

"So where're you from?" The easygoing boy with the spiky hair interjected, practically bouncing in place. He was completely ignoring the glare sent his way from his friend for professionalism.

"Land of Tea." Tsubame answered in amusement, watching the interest flicker out in his eyes.

"Aw there's no shinobi there." He whined, probably hoping to have caught out an infiltrator from another village, despite all her personal information being in place on the passport. And she wouldn't have been a shinobi infiltrator if she had forgotten to match up her spoken and written identity.

"No, no shinobi there." Tsubame answered fondly, smiling warmly at the boy as the more serious kid handed back her passport.

"You'll want to head straight for the Hokage tower then, go to the foreign affairs desk and apply for civilian status there." He pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly trying to keep up some semblance of professionalism.

"Thanks." Tsubame smiled, hauled her backpack higher on her shoulders to avoid the pain that had set in during the long journey to Konoha. She could only assume the incredibly conspicuous tower leering over the village from next to the mountain belonged to the Hokage.

And that mountain, she didn't know how the villagers managed it every day. Four sets of eyes glaring down at your every move, not one of them had even a hint of a smile or a soft expression even though they were looking at the village they dedicated their lives to protecting. Personally, Tsubame was quite happy to never be able to meet any of them in person.

The bricks of the building are cream, and there is always a light shining in at least one of the windows. The reception has a scent of pine, and the room is painted a bland beige. Wooden, the floor stretches all across the room with no carpet to hide it. A military leader's headquarters to the last, not an ounce of the flash a Daimyo would put on display. The only bad word Tsubame could give about it was the help.

The receptionist surveyed Tsubame for a moment, taking in the boots, the faded jeans, the wool sweater beginning to pill at the elbows. She was determined not to let his disapproval get through to her but it required an effort on her part. She stared at him impassively and warded off his withering assessment by picturing him on the toilet with his knickers down around his ankles.

It didn't do her much good considering this man was as glossy and nervous and stylish as a racehorse.

"Do you have any qualifications?" The reedy man asked with a sigh, pushing his wire frame glasses further up his nose, clearly expecting a negative answer.

"I've spent the past two years managing my parents' bakery in preparation for my move here, and I've performed with the Kyomai Dance theatre from a young age." Tsubame answered meekly, knowing that with the way she was dressed it was hard to believe she'd ever gotten up on stage. Her clothes were horrendous, but easy for travelling.

"That should do nicely. It says on your form that you wish to requisition a lot to open up your own bakery?" The receptionists' cold tone had dissipated, eased into the belief that this one, at the very least, wasn't a freeloader. Far from having warmth in his tone, but better than Tsubame had expected considering how her arrival had been received.

"Yes, sir. I bought the lot ahead of time, and visited to make sure everything is in order before deciding to move in. After the bakery's opening the day after tomorrow, I should be good to continue as I am." Tsubame recited confidently. And she was, confident. Her parents had prevented her from moving out at sixteen, like a lot of girls her age had been doing, in an effort to get her more experience in the ways of business before she went out into the world. For the following two years, Tsubame had managed her parents' bakery's finances, inventory, sales, everything.

It had been annoying in the beginning to be retained from her dream longer than she had deemed necessary at the time, but now she could chase her dream on a better financial standing and understanding.

"Good. You are a good deal more prepared than the majority of immigrants we get. Your information will be checked in the meantime, but we can issue you a semi-visa until the background checks are through. We will mail it to the address you have given on your form. I take it you rented this apartment ahead of time also?" The receptionist's voice had begun to soften in sight of her organisational skills, something severely lacking in most immigrants her age.

"I hope you find what you're looking for in this village." The receptionist nodded his head politely before flicking his eyes to the growing line behind Tsubame and barked 'next', causing most standing in line to jump and shuffle forwards quickly.

Tsubame slipped off to the side, away from the odd man, and out the door. Finding Nakagin Apartments after seeing them only once might be harder than she had originally thought.

* * *

Loneliness comes in two basic varieties. When it results from a desire for solitude, loneliness is a door we close against the world. When the world instead rejects us, loneliness is an open door, unused.

Tsubame was often guilty of the first, people wore her out after prolonged exposure and she felt the need to crawl back to her home and lock herself inside to recharge for the next day. She had no social anxieties, or awkwardness in the outer world, just a lack of resilience necessary to deal with the more difficult interactions she would have to face.

The kid living on the same floor as her, the _only_ other person living on the same floor as her, seemed to be the second variety. At least that was what Tsubame had assumed upon knocking on the boy's door, neighbourly cake in hand, and being met with the most wide eyed and surprised stare she had ever come across.

His movements were swift for a child's, his face sharp and mischievous and strange, and his eyes were an odd colour, a fervent robin egg blue. He was too thin, all elbows, and there was something about him that made Tsubame's stomach go watery.

"Don't get much visitors kiddo?" Tsubame joked, trying to break the silence more due to the rapid tiring of her arms under the heavy cake than any desire for small talk. She had planned on giving this cake to her immediate neighbours after making it this afternoon, but had been told by the manager that her closest neighbour was four doors down and five years old. And alone.

"Just Jiji." The boy answered quickly, half hiding behind the door, the one large blue eye she could see roaming over her repeatedly. Typically for a boy his age, his gaze kept stopping on the cake in her quickly tiring arms.

'Jiji? If this boy had a grandfather why on earth didn't he live with him?' Tsubame wondered briefly, shaking her head and deciding to be moderately happy that at least someone visited the kid.

"Well, I'm your new neighbour, Tsubame, nice to meet you." Tsubame gave an overly formal bow, hoping to win a chuckle from the wary kid. She was successful.

"Um, whose cake is that?" The head of sunshine bobbled, so similar in colour to her own, eyes following the cake as Tsubame shifted her weight to the side. The subtlety of a five year old was an amazing thing.

Not that she could blame him. Tsubame had polished this cake as well as she did for those she had sold in her parents' bakery. Tradition with a twist, thick chocolate cake paired with a ribbon of orange; a fruity snap that perfectly complimented the rich, chocolate mousse. When she had heard the boy's age, she had added chocolate shavings of various flavour and varieties across the top.

"This is for you, neighbour. I moved into apartment 14 down the hall, I baked a cake for my neighbour after arriving earlier today and here I am." Tsubame had been about to hand the cake to the boy, but realised his knees would almost definitely buckle under it's weight and the entire thing would be ruined.

"Can I put it somewhere for you?" Tsubame asked, smiling softly at the amazed boy who was staring at the cake with disbelieving eyes.

"...Jiji said not to let strangers into my apartment." The boy groaned, as if in pain at the thought of not being able to eat the cake.

"Jiji's a smart man then. Do you have a table or a twisty chair you can move it on? Don't worry it's still yours." Tsubame held in her laughter as the boy's face almost screwed up in thought, desperately trying to come up with something to get the cake into his apartment.

"No... but can you come in and go out again really fast? You're not _in_ my apartment then." The boy said excitedly, and Tsubame once more had to hold back her laughter. The boy's train of thought was completely nonsensical, but she wasn't going to take the cake back to her place at this stage.

"Sure thing. Make sure you step to the side so I can move as fast as possible." Tsubame stage whispered, as if this was going to be a huge operation. The boy's eyes widened, as if allowed to hear a great secret, and jumped to the side immediately.

"Three, two, one, go!" Tsubame counted down and moved forwards as fast as carrying the cake allowed her to, which was still pretty fast considering her previous experience doing this very thing for years.

As soon as the cake touched the kitchen counter, Tsubame sprinted to the door and came to a dramatic halt right before crashing into the wall in the hall.

"Safe!" The little boy shouted, waving his arms happily as he moved back into the door frame.

"I'm glad that worked out alright, enjoy your cake now. What's your name kiddo?" Tsubame asked, pushing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. The little boy drew himself up to his full less-than-impressive height and beamed.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!"

* * *

_"One potato, two potato, three potato, Four  
She used to live here Long ago  
But she doesn't anymore..."_

Tsubame hummed the old song her grandmother used to sing to her. The old woman had been a bit strange, but she cared for them all in her own way.

_"One potato, two potato, three potato, Four_  
_She's coming after you now_  
_Better lock the door..."_

Alright, granted if anyone else heard these songs they would think the old woman had been trying to traumatize her as a child, but Tsubame had been raised that way. The old woman's ghost stories had been familiar, rather than scary. The old woman had died herself last year, leaving most of her will to Tsubame. She was thankful, sad that her grandmother had died, but thankful of the head start in funding that the money had given her.

The smell of chocolate, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla and honey from the cookies she had made first thing this morning wafted throughout the kitchen behind her newly furnished bakery. The walls were a fiercely stippled whitewash, so often rewhitened by the previous owner in slack seasons that the paint looked as if it had been squeezed and cracked into the walls. Large ovens, shining with gaping mouths, had been blazing for the better part of the morning in preparation for the first day of business.

Tsubame had risen with the sun, and begun her quest of the grand opening hours before any other shops on the street had opened. Most of the pastries and cookies had been prepared, and a lot of the cakes. All that was left were the breads.

By touching the dough, she knew what is necessary to do; if it needs more water or more time mixing. The dough to make the baguettes she was working on had to be not too soft or rough, and the dough had to be able to stretch like a rubber band. Then weighed up, and let it set for fifteen minutes. Then it's ready to proof for forty minutes, before baking with a high temperature and steam.

"Last cake finished, boss!" A voice, identical to her own in every way, chirped happily. Tsubame gave a wry smile, nodded, and the clone poofed away. She was not a ninja, nor came from any ninja clan. But clones didn't need to be payed, and her family had grasped this one singular technique, they could neither throw a punch or create more than two clones at once, but this way it was easy to guarantee the quality of the product and needed no part time employees while she was starting up her business.

It was one jutsu, the only one Tsubame had ever learned and the only one she ever would, but Kami was it useful. Even if she did never have enough chakra for more than three at a time, and even then two was far more manageable.

Tsubame had staked this place out for months before coming to the decision that this was where she would open her bakery. It was directly across from the Academy, a place where they trained small children to be murderers, and the Hokage tower. It meant that most of her clientele would probably end up being shinobi, or their children, but at least it was a guarantee that _someone_ would be passing by.

The Academy was visible from the main window, Tsubame noted as she moved the pans of bread to the storefront, arranging them neatly in as appealing a manner as baguettes ever could be. Assorted cookies, sweets and treats quickly filled the glass display underneath the register while the main display she saved for the more impressive cakes her second clone had made that morning.

As Tsubame finished the last of the display, she watched the children milling into the Academy out of the corner of her eye. The oldest looked to be only thirteen, the youngest close to her neighbour's age maybe a little older. Too young to be learning about kunai and shuriken, poisons and lies.

Tsubame watched with narrowed eyes as younger children again, holding their parents' hands, arrived en masse in front of the Academy. There were a great variety of them there, but it was interesting to see how many of these children, presumably clan heirs of some sort, looked almost exactly like their older counterparts.

A flash of gold under the large tree with a swing across the way caught her attention. The height was right... Tsubame glanced at the clock, she had another ten or so minutes before she had planned to open up shop. Grabbing a paper bag, a few cookies and skewers of Kushi Dango, Tsubame rushed out into the square and darted towards the tree where a mop of unruly blonde hair was just about visible.

"Morning Naruto." Tsubame grinned down at the uneasy boy, who started at the sound of her voice and looked around frantically.

"Eh, neighbour-neechan? What are you doing here?" Naruto's eyes widened in curiosity, springing to his feet and bouncing energetically in front of the much taller girl.

"I run the new bakery that opened over there." Tsubame waved vaguely in it's general direction, not putting too much effort into a description of where it was. She had met him only recently and his little five year old mind had already degenerated into calling her 'neighbour-neechan' rather than her name. She doubted he'd remember the directions to her bakery.

"Wow! Your cake was so so so good! It took me ages to finish it, but I did!" Naruto exclaimed proudly, and Tsubame decided not to ask whether or not that was all in one sitting.

"Well little guy, you never told me you were a ninja." Tsubame smiled as she kneeled to face him at the happiness she could see brimming over the kids' face at her thinking he was a full-fledged ninja already.

"Not yet, but I'm gonna be! The best ever too, today's my first day!" Naruto cheered, stopping midway to stare at the bag his neighbour had gathered in her arms, sniffing the air in what he believed to be a discrete manner.

"Neighbour-neechan, who's the bag for?" Naruto asked in the exact same lilting manner in which he had for the chocolate orange cake two days prior. His eyes were wide and hopeful, and Tsubame was suddenly very glad she wasn't about to disappoint him.

"For my mini-ninja neighbour on his first day of course! I've got a few minutes before I open shop today, so you get the first of my bakery's cakes in the whole village you know!" Tsubame trilled, enjoying the excited expression taking over the boy's face as he snatched the bag from her arms.

She knew she was using a moronic voice every time she spoke to the boy, and likely using the same expressions girls talking to something small, fluffy and kitten-like would, but she couldn't help it. Naruto was quite possibly the most adorable kid she had ever met.

"Eh? Cookies and dango?! You're the best, neighbour-neechan! Oh wait, Jiji's here, I've gotta go! I'll show him your treats too!" Like the excitable ball of energy he was, Naruto took off, leaving Tsubame kneeling on the patch of grass beneath the tree in amusement by herself.

The old man Naruto had run towards was surrounded by a group of parents. He had a fringe of grey-white hair but his balding, mottled scalp was visible through it's thinness despite his unusual pointed hat. He had a wizened face and a back slightly hunched. With each movement there was the creak of old bones. He had the resigned look of one who knows that at his age life has stopped giving and only takes away, but that changed with every exchange that took place. Softness while talking to the parents of new students, wry humour when approached by a young teacher, irritation when someone tugged at his robe, and unconditional love when he saw that it was Naruto who had done it.

Tsubame smiled as she straightened up, watching the young boy wave the paper bag in the old man's face, clearly the boy was less alone than she had originally believed. His grandfather was probably the headmaster of the Academy or something similar, to get such a reaction from the parents with his entrance.

"Oh, wow, I've really got to get down to business!" Tsubame yelped as a clock somewhere struck eight, and scurried back towards her bakery which had a few bewildered ancient-looking locals peering at it in interest already.

"Hello, young lady. Would this be your shop? We were wondering who had bought this place." A lady in her seventies asked with a mild interest only accessible after you've reached a certain age.

"Yes ma'am. I've just moved here from the Land of Tea. I bought this place a few months back, and I've been renovating it bit by bit since then." Tsubame slipped into the easy small talk often associated with working in a bakery, or any family run business. Good relations with the locals was completely necessary, especially the old women who were usually the gossip mongers of the village.

For the remainder of the today, Tsubame smiled when necessary, nodded when needed, and kept up as interesting a conversation as she could with each customer that arrived. She informed them of the week long low prices she set to start off with, how she planned to improve the place, fake fears of how the bakery was going to do badly (with all the time and research put into it she _knew_ it would do well), and everything else she could think of to wrangle a bit of sympathy from a clientele that consisted mostly of those older than sixty.

In the hours before the Academy was let out, she learned that Toru-san's leg had to be amputated during the previous Ninja war and the one he was wearing was fake and hurt when it rained. Miki-san's daughter had been killed in the Kyuubi attack. Ryuunosuke-san had been a jounin in his day, as had a grumpy lady named Koharu.

It was fascinating, how even the civilian lives in Konoha were deeply interwined with their ninja counterparts without either even realising it. Tsubame listened to how the ninja lived completely separate from the rest of the village, how hard it was to relate to them, how some of the higher ups suffered from severe mental issues after years of service, how strange it was that some of the higher ups _hadn't_ suffered from severe mental issues despite how much horror they had seen...

By the time the last of the elders wandered away from the shop as the Academy was let out and young children began milling inside, Tsubame was delighted she hadn't been born into that mess.

"Here you go, little man." Tsubame placed some change and a small paper bag containing baklava into the arms of a chubby young boy with spiral markings on his cheeks reminiscent of another young boy with marked cheeks whom she had met recently.

"T-thank you." The boy bowed politely and scurried out the door to his friend, shorter and scrawnier with his hair scraped back in a severe spiky ponytail, and babbled happily as they wandered off into the streets.

Tsubame sighed and leaned forward on the counter, pressing her forehead against the cash register that had been used and abused all day. Despite having made so many sales, she wouldn't have made much of a profit due to the incredibly reduced pricing she had implemented. The entire point was to get the word out about the quality of product she was selling, people were more likely to buy it first when it was super cheap, when she returned it to regular pricing the customers should trust the quality if nothing else.

"Welcome." Tsubame sprung up with a heady smile as the bell she had installed over the door tinkled sharply.

A man probably the same age as herself, whose eyes were obscured by his forehead protector and long brown bangs on either side of his face and wearing a long grey button-up suit, was undoubtedly a ninja.

"My team only has men." He stated, as if there could be any doubt as to why he was there otherwise. Tsubame stared at the odd man for a few seconds before she clicked to his wavelength. Desserts=baking=girly. Got it. Maybe shinobi didn't like talking much.

"I've got one cobbler left actually. No frills or fuss, pastry on top's bubbled. How's this?" Tsubame pulled out a blueberry and peach cobbler, plain looking and not fitting in with the majority of the shopfront. Made specifically for men who got embarrassed buying anything that could be seen as girly.

"Flavour?" His arms stayed by his side, and Tsubame got the weird impression that he was watching her despite his eyes not being visible.

"Peach and blueberry." Tsubame restrained herself from the joke-flirt she would usually do about now with a less than savoury customer. She had a feeling he wouldn't get it.

The customer didn't speak, but held his arms out to receive the bake which Tsubame placed carefully in his arms. After naming the price, the man nodded, paid and left.

Probably one of those severe mental issue shinobi.

"Neighbour-neechan?" A small voice called up from below the counter. Tsubame started, surprised by the sudden noise but quickly realising the boy had slipped in while the previous customer had left. Which was probably why she hadn't heard the bell go off.

"One day as a shinobi and you're already good at sneaking around. You'll be super strong in no time!" Tsubame placed a hand dramatically over her chest, playing the part of a terrified civilian and delighting the young shinobi-in-training.

"Jiji said I should say thank you properly for being so nice to me. So, thank you very much neighbour-oneesama." Naruto's voice changed on the last sentence to sound like a mechanical recording, completely monotone and sounding exactly like the greetings said before and after school. Even the lilt was practiced to death, probably by this Grandfather berating Naruto for his poor manners. God bless him, beating manners into a five year old boy was no easy task.

"You are very welcome. Did you like your treats?" Tsubame asked placing the weight of her head onto her left hand and watching the smile grow, waver, then grow again on the boy's face.

"Yeah! I shared with the fat boy in my class too, he seems nice. I don't like the others though." Naruto crossed his arms and brooded, and Tsubame had an instant reminder of the chubby boy who had entered for pastries earlier.

There were only so many shinobi who would allow their children to be overweight, she doubted it could be a kid other than the one she had seen.

"Swirly cheeks, red-brown hair?" Tsubame asked lightly, enjoying the look of awe that stretched across the boy's face.

"How did you know?!" The hyperactive boy exclaimed, clambering halfway over the counter in his excitement.

"He came in her earlier with a kid with a ponytail." Tsubame watched the concentration flicker across Naruto's face before he seemed to remember who his neighbour was talking about.

"Oh yeah. I forgot him. He's really lazy." Naruto groaned and scratched his head vigorously.

"Why don't you like the other kids in your class?" Tsubame asked, wondering vaguely at the sharp glare a passerby sent in through the storefront window.

"They're mean and wouldn't let me play." Naruto left it at that, huffing and puffing about how stupid the others were while Tsubame cleaned some crumbs off the counter. It was getting late now.

"That's too bad. Maybe that will change with time." Tsubame smiled amicably, not quite knowing what else to say to that. It seemed to do, as Naruto bobbled his head in furious glee.

"Yeah, I'ma make them see how great I am!" The boy cackled willfully, eyes burning with determination Tsubame had never seen outside of a hidden village. A passion reserved solely for shinobi.

"Stories last longer than men, stones than stories, stars than stones." Tsubame poked the little boy's nose as she padded softly across the bakery and flipped a card hanging from the main door from 'open' to 'closed'.

"What's that mean?" Naruto asked curiously, seeming to take delight in that he was allowed to stay in a shop that had already closed.

"It means cool down, take it easy, it'll all happen in due course."Tsubame ruffled the boy's hair as she motioned for him to step out the door ahead of her. She had finished the cash count as the day went on rather than wait until close, specifically to leave on time today.

"That's so _boring_ though!" Naruto skipped ahead a few paces, complaining profusely about Tsubame's laidback nature.

As the pair moved through the village, not back towards the apartment but towards a building yet untouched by the recent immigrant, Tsubame watched her five year old companion as he chattered good-naturedly, apparently happy just to talk to someone. He looked rather sickly. Not exactly unhealthy, but hollow. Wan. Like a plant that's been moved into the wrong sort of soil and lacking something vital, has begun to wilt. If it weren't for his contrasting vibrant personality, everyone would probably be able to tell.

Light bruising on his inner arms spoke of malnourishment, his tiny height probably factored into the same reasoning.

"Eh? Why are you going here neighbour-neechan?" Naruto chirped, apparently not leaving despite the fact that any other child would have by now. Starved for attention.

Tsubame remembered visiting Konoha's dance theatre, Rinnoji, when she had been maybe fourteen years old and participating in a tournament. So focused on the upcoming competition, and overcome with the typical self-absorption teenagers went through, her memory did the building no justice. It first appeared to be a somewhat unexceptional temple. However, beyond the main hall of the temple was a beautiful Japanese garden and pagoda that were worth a second, third and sometimes fourth glance.

"I danced a lot back home, so I figured it would be a good idea to take it up again before I get too lazy." Tsubame padded over the gravel that led to the pagoda where music could be heard playing from inside.

The shadows were deepening until the encroaching darkness would overtake every glimmer or light and permeated the entire village. Small white moths, looking almost like dandelion seeds, were beginning to flutter around the just-lit streetlamps. She pushed the sliding door open after rapping smartly on the wooden floor before it.

Tsubame had remembered the shape of the instructor's eyes, but not the weight of them. Their darkness pressed the breath out of her chest as if she had suddenly been thrust deep underwater. Hair pulled back in a severe glossy bun, held in place with ornamental chopsticks, and perfectly painted face completed the picture of strict dance instructor.

Her glare, eagle sharp, shot straight past Tsubame herself and nailed into the young boy tottering along behind her.

"Naruto, take off your shoes." Tsubame hissed at the blonde who had wandered onto the tatami without removing his shoes. As he did so, Tsubame was confused to note that the glare sent the young boy's way did not lessen. The word strict probably wouldn't cover this woman's intensity.

"You are Tsubame? Just Tsubame?" The woman waved her hand at the curious dancers standing behind her to continue, who resumed what looked to be a modern ballet piece, as their instructor moved towards the two intruders.

"Yes Teiko-sensei. My family have no clan name." Tsubame bowed perfectly, as instructed previously for years in her own theatre. Naruto hid behind her back, pulling urgently at her t-shirt.

It was shortly after this sentence was uttered that Tsubame realised that something unusual was in truth surrounding Naruto. Something that likely went beyond a few mistakes a boy of five could possibly make.

Tsubame was accepted into the dance studio after a brief audition.

She had been formally requested to never bring Naruto to a practice session ever again. Tsubame glanced down at the boy walking by her side, trying bravely to stay strong and babble happily as he was doing earlier.

Yes, something weird was definitely up with Naruto.


	2. Sweetheart Cake

Thanks so much to kitty-cat-chat, Jenniferj, BlackSpike91, loretta537, latifah7 and madeyemoody95 for your kind reviews. As with any author on this site, reviews spur me on.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing!

The apartment complex's coal-bunker is old, outside, and it stands beneath an ivy hedge, so that when Tsubame went to it in wet weather, she caught the combined smells of damp earth and decaying vegetation, and she could close my eyes and be thousands of miles away, up to her middle in a monsoon ditch in Amegakure, with her face pressed against the tall slats of a bamboo fence, and a soldier standing on her shoulders, swearing at her while the rain pelted down and soaks them. And all around there is mud, and mud, and more mud, until she quit dreaming and came back to the mundane business of getting a shovelful of coal for the sitting-room fire.

There was a storm approaching Konoha, likely to only last a day or two, but Tsubame had already decided to prepare for the worst.

She had closed up shop in the late afternoon. She had placed sandbags in front of her bakery's door, collected together all the outdoor plants she had placed on her not-quite-a-balcony and brought them inside, and was now stocking up on coal for the following day or two in case the electricity went out and she needed hot water.

It had been a month since Tsubame had moved to this city. A month since she had opened her bakery, joined a curious dancing troupe not quite as polished as the one she had left, met locals daily and learned gossip about people she hadn't known, and a month since she had met Naruto.

Tsubame still couldn't figure the boy out. She was far from holding any amount of great intelligence, she had always been a more physical being. When the girls of her previous village had practiced calligraphy, poetry and academic pursuits, she had been dancing, baking, and eating whatever creation she and her parents had created.

A lot of Naruto's mistreatment was subtle. There were no mobs threatening to stone him, very little physical harm thrust on the boy in any manner of speaking. But peoples' eyes darkened, demeanours changed, and so few had a friendly word to say to the boy. At first Tsubame had believed it was due to his orphan status, they were afraid that he would take a shine to them and social pressures would attempt a forced adoption.

But the glares were too exaggerated, too real for just that. Some of the cold looks had begun sliding her way at one point, before a nearby elder explained that she was _new to the village_ and the glaring stopped abruptly, replaced by an apologetic and pitying stare.

Tsubame was never quite certain of the tone in which she ought to reply to any observation made regarding the young boy, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so in any event she would embellish all her facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate her from the charge of being an idiot, if the remark addressed to her should turn out to have been facetious. But as she must also be prepared to face the alternative, she never dared to allow this smile a definite expression on her features, and you would see there a perpetually flickering uncertainty, in which you might decipher the question that she never dared to ask: "Do you really mean that?" She was no more confident of the manner in which she ought to conduct herself in the street, or indeed in life generally, than she was in her own apartment complex. She _liked_ the hyperactive little boy.

Naruto filled the silences that rattled around their otherwise empty apartment floor, the emptiness in itself an peculiarity, he was cheerful, and he got attached easily. Too easily. Other than 'Jiji', who Tsubame had yet to see anywhere other than near the Academy, Tsubame was the only positive adult influence in the boy's life that she was aware of.

Thanks to the treats, pastries and occasionally cakes she often gave to Naruto, he had made a friend. One friend, but a good one. Akimichi Chouji, a sweet, chubby little boy who probably would have been Naruto's friend had he asked for such a thing even without the edible bribes.

Chouji had another good friend, who by extension was also in Naruto's tiny social circle but not liked enough to yet be called a friend, his name was Nara Shikamaru. Apparently it was a family tradition for the two to be friends, dating back to the creation of the village.

Shikamaru had sharp, angular eyes that probably would have been scary had they been home to any emotion other than happiness and lethargy. But in essence, that was what the boy was. Generally content to be relaxed, despite his decidedly spiky and lively ponytail that drove out from his head in every direction possible.

"Oof!" Tsubame struggled, distracted from her movements by her thoughts, and scrambled to maintain balance as the sack of coal she had in her arms tipped precariously to the side as she moved back towards the complex.

Tsubame quickened her pace as the clouds began to gather in the sky. Up to now, the sky had been postcard-perfect, but it was changing. The beautiful cocktail-blue shade was beginning to darken into gravel-grey. Large pillows of cloud were forming, blotting out the old-gold colour of the sun. She got the first splatter of rain when she was halfway across the small shared garden of the complex. She reached the porch in which the block's door was situated in time for the first heavy drops of rain to crash onto her head, but that was all.

Tsubame moved into the stairwell immediately behind the door and began the long climb up to her apartment. The stairs creaked and groaned under her weight on an average day, but with the increased weight the bag of coal added to her mass the racket had gotten on every nerve she possessed by the time she had arrived on her floor.

What began with a slow pitter-pattering of rain, bouncing off the roof and forming puddles, had steadily built up to a thunderous deluge by the time Tsubame stopped to take a breath, so loud that she had to peer out the stairwell window. The winds were driving the rain faster, harder, stronger than it had ever before.

"That storm's coming in fast." Tsubame murmured in awe, the Land of Tea never saw severe storms, and certainly never ones that built up so quickly.

Two hours later and the electricity went out. Ten minutes after that, and a quiet hesitant knock could be heard at her apartment door.

"Come in, it's open!" Tsubame called from her matching maroon couch and footrest, bundled up in a fleecy blanket, reading by candlelight, and making no effort to move. There was little doubt as to who was at the door anyway.

"Neighbour-neechan, it's really loud out there." Naruto slipped in, pretending to complain grumpily but with every low rumble of thunder that sounded overhead a visible shiver could be seen through the young boy's body.

"It is, huh? I was reading my book and forgot all about it. Want to see?" Tsubame said casually and unfurled the blanket from her left hand side and patted the cushion next to her. Naruto seized his chance immediately, springing over next to the young woman and nestling in next to her. Tsubame curled the blanket back around herself and Naruto, cocooning the air into a pocket of warmth around herself yet again but including her little friend.

"Has it got a princess?" Naruto asked, tugging the corner page of the book eagerly. He didn't jump nearly as much when the thunder crashed overhead this time, much closer than it had before.

"Haha, no. This is a book my Obaa-san used to read to me and my cousins when we were kids. I read them every once in a while. You want to hear?" Tsubame asked, already knowing the answer before Naruto's head bobbled eagerly.

Naruto was a good listener, which was surprising given his overly extroverted nature. As long as what was said was for his ears, for _him_ to listen to, he would listen happily. He made sounds in the right places, hissed at the evil guys, and cheered Momotaro on as he left his parents to fight a band of marauding oni (demons or ogres) on a distant island.

Tsubame was barely surprised anymore at the fact that Naruto hadn't heard this story before. It was the most common of all folk tales, and Naruto was hearing it for the first time at five years old. Almost six, though it hardly mattered.

"NO!" Naruto screeched as the entire room lit up, diving beneath the pink fleece blanket to avoid seeing the sheet lightning flashing across the sky outside. Forks like lizard tongues, but white hot and blinding, danced across the night sky outside, casting shapes around the room and accompanying the thunder that was growing in volume.

"It's alright, kiddo. Just some flashy lights." Tsubame said soothingly, rubbing Naruto's back through the blanket in an effort to calm him down. Slowly the shaking beneath the thin sheet stopped, but he did not emerge.

"Hm, I made an extra sweetheart cake in the bakery but had to bring it home when I closed up shop. Want to help finish it?" Tsubame asked brightly, encouraged by the appearance of two cerulean orbs peeping out from under the blanket in mild interest.

Not waiting for an answer, Tsubame eased herself to her feet with a groan, and padded towards the conjoined kitchen to search the fridge. Sweetheart cake had flaky and thin skin made with winter melon, almond paste, and sesame, and spiced with a blend of fennel seed, star anise, licorice root and cloves. Not many children were a fan of it, but Tsubame knew Naruto wasn't picky. In fact, anything she made he devoured with relish. Even the food she had a feeling he wouldn't enjoy eating had he acquired it himself.

Tsubame cut him a large slice, and put the rest in the fridge. Naruto was more than capable of eating the entire thing, but his health had been worrying her lately.

"This is really good!" Naruto proceeded to stuff the cake down his throat as fast as his tiny little fists would allow. He always did manage to surprise her. Last month Naruto spoke of nothing but the wonders of ramen, and now his favourite food appeared to be pad thai. Which, to Tsubame, was effectively ramen without the bowl, but he got a kick out of it so she indulged him.

"I'm glad. I'd hate to hear that I'm bad at what I do for a living." Tsubame hummed easily, running Naruto's feather light hair between her fingers as he ate enthusiastically. He didn't respond to her bland comment, nor did she expect him to. Crumbs were fighting to escape his mouth as a third of the cake disappeared in possibly record time. Had Naruto been any other child, Tsubame wouldn't encourage the excessive eating habits he exhibited.

But no matter how much Naruto ate, the signs of malnutrition were receding at an incredibly slow pace. Tsubame had put it down to the amount of energy he burned running around (training, he called it), and studying. She was aware that eating for two (or three or four in Naruto's case) was not in any sense the cure for malnutrition. If anything it was probably worse, but at least most of what he ate was as balanced as any normal family could manage to make it. The quantity was incredibly skewed, but that didn't appear to have any negative effects.

If anything, Tsubame figured that for whatever reason Naruto _required_ more food than the average person. No weight was gained, and although the bags under the eyes were gone, there were other signs that his condition had not improved as much as it should have in the space of a month.

"Neechan, I'm really tired." Naruto said blearily rubbing his eyes and wincing as he pushed a stray crumb into the corner of his eye.

"Oh? You'll have to sleep here then. Can't have you walking all the way back to your place if you're tired, I'll grab you a blanket." Tsubame spoke quickly, knowing that although her reasoning made no sense seeing as Naruto lived all of a twenty second walk away, Naruto would never find a fault in her argument. He never did.

The irrational guilt Tsubame felt when that little boy looked at her with the moon and stars in his eyes made up a good portion of her soul now. Naruto genuinely believed she could do no wrong, more so than what most children believed of adults. She was only eighteen herself, barely out of childhood, and now a little boy looked to her every day for love and acceptance.

And damn her if she didn't want to give it.

"Mm, ok. Tomorrow's Sunday, you're not going to be at the bakery are you?" Naruto yawned, mouth wide and clean as a cat's, as he rubbed his eyes blearily. Tsubame pulled out a patchwork blanket her mother had made some years ago, tucking it around Naruto's little body easily and maneuvering him to lie down on the slightly uncomfortable couch.

"Nope, but we've got rehearsals for the performance on the tenth of October. It's next week and we need a lot of practice if we're going to impress a shinobi village. Can't look like great dancers on stage if half of the taijutsu specialists in the city can do better." Tsubame smiled as Naruto nodded again, probably barely listening to a word she said.

"G'night." His voice was small, smaller than any voice should be.

"Night, little man." Tsubame padded softly to the edge of the room, flicked off the lights, and moved back to her bedroom while smiling softly. Safe to say she was very fond of the young boy occupying her living room, so fond in fact she would probably introduce him to her parents soon. They had always planned to visit when she had gotten settled in, her mum would adore him, she knew.

* * *

_While the misfired jutsu were knocking the ditch to pieces at the crossroads, she lay very flat and sweated and waited, "Oh Kami get me out of here. Dear Kami, please get me out. Kami, please, please, please, Kami. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Kami." The voice next to her prayed. The sounds moved further up the line. They lay low and quiet in the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at the village he did not tell his mother as he went upstairs with at home about Kami. And he never told anybody._

Tsubame jerked awake, breathing a little heavily and forcibly calming herself down. That odd dream often came back to her. It was returning more often now, especially as she worked for and around shinobi on a daily basis.

A few years ago, seven she thought, herself and her neighbour had agreed to make a delivery together. Her parents ran the bakery, his the butchers. They were sharing the same cart, and complaining all the time of the other slowing them down with the weight of the purchase.

They were not bandits, the men who the two neighbours spotted far up the road. They were performing acrobatics, fire and earth moved in the distance, and the glint of flying weaponry glinted on the horizon.

Tsubame and her neighbour, - what had been his name? She couldn't remember - they moved the cart off the dirt track into the ditch next to it and moved under some shrubbery, forcing a carrot into the donkey's mouth for good measure and to keep silence. Nothing had happened other than the fight moving closer to their side of the road, they had seen the shinobi's sandals, smelled sweat, and heard the sizzling of someone's skin on fire, but seen nothing above ankle height on either participant.

Tsubame had been terrified beyond the point of helpless whispering as the boy next to her had been. Shaking, and feeling the growing heat of fire burning, she had lain terrified next to a boy of equal use, and a donkey who had barely seemed to know or care what was happening.

The combatants had definitely known they were 'hiding' there, but thankfully neither had seemed inclined to care. Once the battle had finished the winner had announced his victory loudly, likely for the benefit of the two children hiding under the bush, and left quickly. He took the corpse with him, for which Tsubame was eternally grateful.

Neither she nor her partner moved for hours after the man had left, and when they had arrived home all the supplies were spoiled and their parents in a fuss.

"Bye Neechan, I've got school!" Naruto's voice called out eagerly throughout the apartment, quickly followed by the loud shutting of the front door and the sound of shuffling steps pelting down the hall.

Tsubame glanced at the alarm clock next to her bed and smothered the soft smile that was tempted to creep across her face. It would be a few hours before the Academy would open its' doors to the students, and the sun hadn't even risen yet. It was nice that Naruto had made a good friend in Chouji, but his insistence to be at the Academy hours before opening time was bordering on maniacal.

Tsubame rose and dressed quietly and went out into the silent street.

By the light of the faint stars, she made her way to the steps that zigzagged up the steep hill near their apartment block, and began to climb. As she did so she watched the eastern sky, and saw there the first pale silver gleams on the horizon that heralded the coming dawn.

She had decided to watch the sun rise. She had time before she was needed at the studio, and the bakery was closed for the day.

At the top of the steps the path flattened out and led into the stone - flagged main square. To her right rose the great mass of the Hokage Tower, the building that dominated the area; to her left, the path of old storm - blasted deciduous trees that led to the overlook atop the Hokage's faces engraved in the mountain. She knew these trees well. She came to this place often during the month she had been here, to be alone and to look out over the city to the very farthest edges of the walled enclosure.

There was a wooden railing at the far end of the avenue, to warn those who walked here to go no further. Beyond the railing the land fell away, at first at a steep slope, and then in a sheer vertical cliff. Hundreds of feet below, past nesting falcons and the circling flight of gulls, the first vestiges of noise was rising. This was the most southerly side of the village. From here there was nothing but sky and birds.

Tsubame stood by the railing and watched the light trickle into the sky and shivered. The band of gold now glowing on the horizon seemed to promise change: a future in which everything would be different, with this dawn she had been in a shinobi village for a month. She had never believed herself to have the courage to come near the type of person that could slaughter another while children watched from under a shrub in the ditch, but she had.

Her real life, the life for which she had been waiting so long, was about to begin.

The gold light was now turning red. All across the eastern sky the stars were fading into the light, and the feathery bands of cloud were rimmed with scarlet. Any moment now the sun itself would break the line of the horizon.

How can a new day begin like this, she thought, and nothing change?

Then there it was, a blazing crimson ball bursting the band of sea and sky, hurling beams of brilliance across the water. She looked away, dazzled, and saw the red light on the trunks of the trees and on the high stone walls of the village. Her own hand too, held up before her, was bathed in the rays of the rising sun, familiar but transformed.

She heard a soft sound behind her. Turning, startled, she saw a figure standing in the avenue. She flushed and lowered her arms. Then she gave a respectful bow of her head, because the watcher was a shinobi and she had been allowed to hear that sound of their arrival.

"You're up early."

The man was tall, muscular, with a broad face and slanted dark eyes. He was probably a few years older than her, but it was hard to tell with people who had been weathered by war. There were fifteen year olds that looked to be thirty wandering around after all.

"Yes sir. I've got a while to wait before practice, but my little brother woke me up early." Tsubame supplied, knowing that she was technically allowed to be where she was as long as she hadn't crossed the wooden railing. Thank Kami she hadn't yet.

"Practice?" He asked in amusement, looking her over once or twice before Tsubame realised he was searching for a hitaiate.

"I dance at Rinnoji." Tsubame answered, watching the mild interest flicker out in his eyes to be replaced by vague boredom.

Not that Tsubame was complaining, he was one of the most physically intimidating men she had ever met. He was taller than any shinobi she had met thus far, and broad as a bear to go with it. Tsubame was tall herself, she had yet to meet more than a handful of women in her life that could match her full height. She was used to being the same height as men, maybe taller, occasionally smaller. Rarely dwarfed.

"You should get moving then. Isn't the tenth of October just around the corner?" His smile was more like a baring of teeth, but his eyes were not unkind as he did so.

"Yes sir. Have a good day." Tsubame answered reflexively, forgetting for a moment that she wasn't serving in her shop and such a formal goodbye was unnecessary. She turned on her heel and moved quickly down the mountainside.

Tsubame learned later that week when Mr. 'my team has only men' arrived, that this particular shinobi's name was Ibiki Mornio.

* * *

Favoring her left leg, Teiko stepped over a short pile of books about rare poisons. She'd cracked her hip years ago in a skirmish with the Smiling Man, and it still took three cups of valerian tea to push back the pain. Teiko sipped from her third cup of the day, taking a break from coaching the dancers for this year's Konoha Day memorial dance practice.

She wasn't as young as she used to be, but as the saying goes, old age and trickery beat out youth and speed every time. At least, so far.

Teiko's eyes narrowed on the long, lithe form of her newest dancer, a young woman by the name of Tsubame, no known family name. She was chatting easily with a girl who had grown up in the Rinnoji studio, who had begun at the age of six and was now seventeen and a bright young girl.

Teiko had been unable to figure out for a few weeks how the young lady had been able to run a bakery and attend dance practice with as few absences as those who did not work. The discovery of the girl's clones, along with just how close she was to the Kyuubi brat, had piqued Teiko's interest.

But even the chance of discovering a conspiracy was null and void. The shadow clone jutsu was the only one the girl could use, and to almost a pathetic degree, and she was completely unaware of the boy's status as a jinchuriki. Teiko had been sure of that, by watching the girl's expression as she announced her leading part as the Kyuubi in the dance.

There are days that Teiko missed her life as a kunoichi, particularly when seemingly-interesting but remarkably dull people made their way into her life. Those situations used to uncover undercover shinobi, nowadays her past was forgotten with a long list of ex-chuunin before her and there was no more likely to be a secret shinobi enlisting in her class than a flying pig.

Teiko had been punished the day of the Kyuubi attack, for bungled information on a mission she had been to assist the Uchiha Police forces for the week. '_We can't be everywhere, not with so few of us and the city so large.'_ The memory of a voice lurked in the back of her mind. The force lived spread out between the four corners of the Uchiha district to minimize the delay in their response, but when the nine tails erupted, they were too late. When the tails lashed and went before a member could respond, all they could do was clear the rubble and prevent the terrified citizens from lashing out at their assistance.

Teiko narrowed her eyes in memory of the beast's soulless eyes, leering at every shinobi as if they were a speck of dirt and killing just as many. Her spouse had been crushed that day. Not even by a lash of a tail, or the energy draining blasts the beast was spitting out of its maw, but trampled underfoot, squished out underneath the pads of the great creature's paws.

She had been a teacher in the Academy before that. Enlisted in a mission late as an extra member to make up numbers during a time where they were still suffering from the effects of the war. She was unable to return to teaching children, full of innocence, after the trauma of the day of the Kyuubi. She had been admitted into the hospital for treatment, her memory hadn't been up to scratch and her mind's basic functions had betrayed her.

"Confused today," they wrote on her notes. "Confused. Less confused. Very confused." That last was written frequently, sometimes abbreviated by the nurses to just "VC," which made her smirk, as if she were sufficiently confused to be given a medal for it. Her name was on the notes too—just her first name, Teiko, as if in old age she were demoted to childhood, and denied both the dignity of surname and title and the familiarity of the form of her name she preferred. The notes reminded her of a school report with the little boxes and fixed categories into which it was so difficult to express the real complexity of any situation. "Spelling atrocious." "Needs to pay attention." "Confused today." They seemed remote and Olympian and impossible to appeal. "But Miss!" the kids would say in more recent years. She would never have dared when she was in school, and neither would the obedient girls of her first years of teaching. "But Miss!" was a product of their growing confidence, trickle-down feminism, and she welcomed it even as it made her daily work harder. She wanted to say it herself to the nurses who added to her notes: "But Miss! I'm only a little confused today!"

It wasn't until a few months later, when a new crisis had taken the place of the Kyuubi's, did Teiko register any improvement herself. Parts of the city suddenly started dying from a mysterious illness, later linked to the traitor Orochimaru, but mysterious at the time none the less.

It was a singularly horrible way to die. Pus-filled sores would appear on the victim's skin, then their gums would begin to bleed. Soon, unable to move, covered in boils and with their teeth falling out, the victim would fall asleep, never to wake.

Teiko wanted to get out of the hospital, away from the sight of those people as fast as possible, and she had. Teiko had tried to return to teaching in the Academy, she truly had. She had lived for the school. But with every new face, innocent and childish trying to figure out how to properly hold a kunai, she could see another new face fumbling with the handle of a weapon too soon facing down an opponent they could never defeat in their wildest dreams.

In dance, there were no weapons to bring about the nightmares the Academy had. Teiko, late in life, joined the Rinnoji theatre as she once had in her youth during kunoichi training.

"Tsubame, how do you expect to strike fear into the hearts of the audience as the Kyuubi with that moronic smile on your face. _Attitude, demi-pointe_... Now!" Teiko barked, inwardly grinning as the girl stumbled in her attempt to get into position too quickly in order to placate the seemingly irate dance instructor.

Teiko continued to shout instructions - _when you frappe I expect to hear it_ - and watch as the newest member twisted and turned and contorted her body into shapes a lot of the girls who had been practicing all their lives had never and will never be able to do.

Her limbs, already long even without instruction, extended with a dancer's grace beyond their supposed length. Feet always pointed. Hips always moving tastefully in accordance with the rest of her body's movements. There was no doubt as to where the girl had learned to dance.

Only in the Land of Tea, where no recruitment to the shinobi force was administered, could true dancers be found. In Konoha, children of athletic promise were whisked away to the Academy at a young age, civilian family or not, and given the choice after a few years whether they wished to become ninja or not. By then, the brainwashing was so prominent in their young minds it was a rare child that declined.

In the Land of Tea, the children that would once have been shinobi could become professionals of other athletic endeavours. This girl, while as slender in form as any professional dancer ever has been, was equally muscular as those dancers. There was not much flesh to her bones, but what was there was hard and lean and capable of more strength per square inch than many shinobi were probably capable of.

Needless to say the girl would never have made a good kunoichi, her temperament was so far off the desired mark it would almost have been humorous to see her try, but a dancer she could be.

"Tsubame, are you collecting your little brother after practice again?" Another girl called out, dark hair pulled in a high ponytail and mischievous eyes lighting up as Tsubame shook her head and sat down heavily on the floor.

Teiko-sensei was attempting to kill her. Of that, Tsubame was sure. Had a single other girl in the studio gone through the training, rigorous constant steps, that Tsubame had there was little doubt in her mind that they would be in hospital.

Tsubame was eternally thankful for her previous training, the Land of Tea seemed to produce better dancers for the same reason Konoha seemed to produce better shinobi than other villages. Training, and the facilities to provide it.

"Good, myself and Shinobu are going to Back Way Out after training. It's the last time this week we can _do _anything for the rest of the week until the performance. You up for it?" Nono asked, leaning against the wall next to their newest member who was gulping down water eagerly. Tsubame nodded, not wanting to stop her gulping of water and very glad she had brought a change of clothes and shower gear in favour of walking home sweaty that day.

As soon as the trio were ready, they moved through the streets of Konoha to a bar thankfully rather close to where Tsubame lived.

The place was called the Back Way Out, a uniquely grimy place with a hint of character, jazzed up like a real juke joint with crooked shingles hammered over the drywall and sawdust shavings scattered across the stain-resistant vinyland-tile flooring. The gimmick, even more than the décor, gave the bar away as the young-person haven it was: everyone who entered got a laminated, folding yellow card, with a clip-art sketch of a beer mug on it and eighty-seven tiny squares. Fill each square by drinking—or at least ordering— all eighty-seven varieties of microbrew the bar served and you became a Back Way Out legend and got your photo on the Crossroads Wall behind the stage. Fill forty-three squares and you got a yellow Halfway Out the Back T-shirt, complete with drooling smiley-face logo.

Tsubame considered it a small sign of hope for humanity that she saw at least half a dozen drooling smiley-face T-shirts as Nono dragged her through the door, but very few photos on the Crossroads Wall.

The musician onstage was strictly advanced karaoke, perfect for a training-wheel bar like the Back Way Out, but he had some taste, at least.

Tsubame spent the rest of the night chatting with the two girls she had become close with. Nono the eldest at twenty, with Shinobu following up at nineteen. Not more than two months older than Tsubame herself.

Nono, fun, outgoing and flirtatious as she was, had spoken to Tsubame first. It had been no surprise to hear that the dark haired beauty specialised in Flamenco.

Shinobu, equally pretty in a girl next door kind of way, had mousy hair and large expressive eyes. Quiet, compared to what most dancers were like, and specialised in Jazz and tap dancing.

Tsubame herself preferred ballet and modern dancing, which each of the girls scoffed at quickly. Apparently personalities off stage were not as common a link to choice of dance as they had believed.

She enjoyed the evening, drank only a small amount, and left before it got too late. Tsubame ignored the cries of how boring she was coming from Nono, knowing that Naruto would only impose on the Akimichi household for so long before he came home. They had more practice tomorrow anyway, and Tsubame couldn't afford to be hung over in the morning if she expected to pull off the clone jutsu to take care of the bakery while she was there.

Tsubame liked Konoha, she decided as she moved through the darkness, nodding at an Uchiha police man on patrol as she went. It was a dangerous place, probably, but she knew that.

You could always see movement out of the corners of your eyes. You're watched from the city's shadows. They all knew that. They just don't want to. Sometimes, though, you can't help wondering—who are those other Konohans? The ones they never see? Who sifts through the rubbish? Who got oily handprints so high up on that building, way out of reach? Who scratched warning marks on those walls, who disturbs deserted building sites? The answer was the shinobi, Tsubame knew that.

But who they were was a more interesting question. Why people with so much power acted the way they did was fascinating. How nearly all of them suffered from one mental trauma or another likely factored into the unusual quirks most of them seemed to have.

Tsubame nodded at the doorman of her apartment building as she mused to herself, moving up the stairs rather than the elevator. It was broken more often than it was fixed, so she rarely bothered with it anymore.

Tsubame hummed softly as she walked down the hall towards her apartment and froze outside Naruto's door.

It was open.

It shouldn't be open, but it was. Naruto _never _left the door unlocked, as unusual as that trait was in an almost-six year old. And there was red paint splashed across the front door, the pattern 666 repeated continuously across the wooden surface.

"Naruto?" Tsubame called out, her voice loud against what was always supposed to be a quiet background. She was both thankful and worried when there was no answer. Tsubame nudged the door open further and gasped at what she saw on the other side.

Somebody had slashed open the cushions for the couch, stray fluff spread all over the room. Mr. Ukki, Naruto's pet plant, had been ripped out of it's pot and the dirt tossed everywhere. Naruto's Academy books were tossed everywhere, pages ripped out. The sink had been left running, clogged, and was beginning to spill over the side.

The room was everything Tsubame hoped it wouldn't be. Ransacked totally and beyond recognition.

She flicked off the tap on instinct, vaguely realising that the culprit mustn't have been gone long or the entire room would be flooded. She re-potted Mr. Ukki, praying that he survived and didn't rot away after the ordeal. Naruto cared for the plant a lot, oddly enough.

Before Tsubame knew it, she had a lot of the room cleaned while she was in a mechanical, non-thinking state. Once clear thought returned to her, Tsubame called forth two clones to finish the cleaning, nearly unattainable so soon after drinking but she just about managed it, and moved to wait in the hall.

She's invite Naruto into her place for a game of some sort tonight, for long enough for the clones to finish cleaning. Naruto would never have to know. She would report this to the Uchiha police force in the morning, as soon as the little boy had left for school.

Tsubame scrubbed the door clean of all paint as she waited.

_It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It'll be fine._


	3. Apple Tart

Thank you so much for your kind reviews, they are much appreciated and very welcomed.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing!

When it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can almost always find the same desires in your own heart.

But Tsubame couldn't understand this. _Any_ of it.

The policeman had shaken his head. "Nothing to be done. I wanted to help you do what you think is right. As long as it was something good."

She would not have been Tsubame if she hadn't found one more poisonous thing to say. "I see. You are the _only_ judge of good."

"Ah, I am a judge of good, and you are the judge of nothing. Well, I find you guilty of idiocy, and sentence you to a lifetime of working and suffering for the sake of it. I only hope that someday you won't discover _why_ the world seems so against your efforts." The policeman had finished politely, and left quickly into the early morning dawn.

Tsubame tried three other members of the Uchiha police, garnering no love and receiving no help as she requested. The following two were much less polite than the first, and the third had simply given her a derisive glare before moving on. It unnerved her how similar the Uchiha appeared to one another, each had the same piercing dark eyes, porcelain skin and impassive expression.

All that hatred must go somewhere, Tsubame reckoned fiercely. Come from somewhere. Even in the everyday average sense, and not regarding Naruto's rather unique situation.

All the same, some of it must go in somewhere. It must go in, because by the time a moment like that comes along, where you find out _why_ as the policeman put it, there's a part of you that's been waiting. Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper at the back of your head, saying: "One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels." So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like the policeman, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you-of what you stood for in this world and why-and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment.

It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

Tsubame was not clever, but she knew with every fibre of her being that not everyone in the village could possibly be as heartless as they appeared from her point of view. People were self-serving, but generally didn't go out of their way to help or hinder others without a good reason.

The closer time got to Naruto's birthday, the edgier people seemed. There was some fuss with an enormous fox a few years ago, from what little people were willing to talk about it, and a lot of people died. Tsubame supposed she could probably go to the library for this sort of thing, but the amount of free time she had between the bakery, dance practice, and spending time with Naruto left her rather despondent regarding the thought of putting her brain to use any more than she already had to.

Any business school professor will tell you that the objective of business communication is the clear transfer of information. That's why professors rarely succeed in business.

The real objective of business communication is to advance your career. That objective is generally at odds with the notion of "clear transfer of information".

The successful manager knows that the best kind of communication is one that conveys the message "I am worthy of promotion" without accidentally transferring any other information. Clear communication can only get you in trouble. 'Remember, you can't be wrong unless you take a position. Don't fall into that trap.' That was possibly the most important piece of information Tsubame's parents had ever passed on to her.

Tsubame could not out-strategise great shougi players, keep pace with great philosophers, or understand mathematical equations involving much other than actual numbers. But, from a young age, she had been taught about two things. Business and baking.

Sure, a lot of people could bake well, dress up a cake prettily and have it taste amazing. It wasn't so unusual a talent for a lot of people to have. It was when you combined it with the art of business, of getting people to buy _your_ cakes over everyone else's, to spread word of your product and your name successfully without stepping on the toes of already existing businesses who have been established longer than your own, that is what Tsubame and her family excelled at.

You can short-circuit the two or three neurons that people use for common sense by appealing to their greed. Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things for phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating and religion. You can use this quirk of human nature to your advantage and it won't cost you a yen.

Tsubame knew all this, could implement it to a degree on a small scale, such as her bakery, and have it work well. That was the meaning behind her original low pricing. The occasional luck-of-the-draw raffles she drew for the most impressive cake she had in the shop at the time, everything was to spread the good name of her product.

How she was going to implement this strategy to acquiring information about Naruto's birth, she had no idea. Surely the police wouldn't divulge such information for a few slices of free cake.

But there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, with someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. Tsubame sighed, giving up and walking the path back to the apartment block.

Today, if nothing else, she would find someone who could make Naruto's home a safe place for him. A lot of shinobi stopped by her bakery, some of whom she had become relatively friendly with. She might be able to broach the question, given the right circumstances.

Naruto woke up as she walked in the front door, blinking blearily from under his usual patchwork blankets and sprawled carelessly over the couch.

"Wha' time'zit?" He groaned, not noticing or caring about the just-risen sun visible from the window.

"Early, you don't have to leave for school for another half hour." Tsubame answered with a smile, it widened as Naruto practically exploded from under his blankets as soon as reality caught up with him. Energy abound, the child had. Within five seconds of waking up, he was awake for the day and bouncing around, getting under everyone's feet and generally making as much a nuisance of himself as every child his age gifted with the energy of a thousand.

"What are you making for your breakfast?" Tsubame translated that question in her head to, are you making _me_ breakfast. he still didn't ask for things directly, but was improving.

"Hm, I was thinking omelette. I'm starving, ran half way around the city this morning." Tsubame joked easily, making her way to the fridge and removing the necessary ingredients.

"Forget to get more cake stuff?" Naruto asked mischievously, as if forgetting to buy an extra batch of ingredients for her bakery was akin to his filling his class' bathing suits with itching powder before changing for their swim lesson.

"Mm." Tsubame answered vaguely, knowing the boy would take it for the positive it wasn't and change subject again. He had gone an entire night without talking, and was likely not to stop until the missing hours of monologue had been made up for before noon. Naruto, while always extremely talkative, was more so in the mornings.

It was at times like these, in the early morning, that Tsubame learned the most about her little neighbour. He loved to prank people, usually only harmlessly, recently discovered a great ramen place himself and Chouji had taken to dragging Shikamaru during lunchtimes when they escaped, there was this weird kid called Sasuke who all the teachers adored, a street vendor had stuck out his foot as Naruto had walked past and Chouji spat a mouthful of half-chewed barbeque chips on the man and it had been _awesome_, and the list went on.

By the time Naruto and Tsubame were both walking towards the Academy she had learned this time about a boy in Naruto's class whose family was full of shinobi, and their partners were dogs. The boy in question had unusual facial tattoos that Naruto adored because 'there are two of us with weird things on our face now, dattebayo!'

It wasn't until Tsubame had settled herself behind the counter of her bakery and dispelled the few clones that had been baking since early morning did the smile Naruto had created slip off her face in remembrance of what had happened the night before. Naruto had a gift for cheering people up, it was a shame more people didn't give him a chance to make use of it.

"I like to think I am the type of person who _wouldn't_ hook up with Kokoro. She may be hot but she is also 1. aggressively vapid, and 2. an absolute, unadulterated, raging bitch. Those of us who spend time in the mission room have long suspected that Kokoro maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children." The speaker, a man named Aoba, sighed dramatically as he leaned against the cash register of Tsubame's bakery.

With tufty brown hair, red rimmed sunglasses and an easy demeanour, he was easy to like. Especially when he, for once, was not relaying these stories of his when there was a line the length of the village trailing out the door behind him.

"I'm guessing there's more to your visit than this statement?" Tsubame raised a single eyebrow, something she had trained herself to do while very young because she had loved the effect and had not been able to do naturally, and stared at the man who was milking the dramatic silence for all it was worth.

"BUT! Despite being a mere paper-pusher now, she was once a chuunin too! She _knew_ how to use the power of alcohol to her advantage, and I fell to her wiles. When I realised what had happened, it was already morning." Aoba said morosely, placing a hand over his heart as if deeply wounded.

"I think even civilians like me are aware of the power of alcohol. Not a new thing there Aoba. That's three jam doughnuts, what about the fourth you usually get?" Tsubame asked curiously, bagging the powdered treats easily and handing them across to the tokubetsu jounin.

"My kouhai drank the coffee I had prepared this morning." Aoba answered stiffly, and gave no further explanation. Tsubame snickered easily as she counted out the change.

"Needed that coffee rather badly after such a busy night I suppose." Tsubame placed the change in the man's hand.

"Why does everybody keep saying that? Surely you all know the powers of alcohol can do mysterious things?" Aoba spread his arms dramatically, stopping mid way to pull a doughnut out of the bag and bite into it.

"Maybe if you looked even _slightly_ put out by it people might. You've been going around telling _everyone_ you slept with one of the hotter girls of the village?" Tsubame snorted at the sheepish expression that overtook the braggart's face.

"I'll have you know-" He started but Tsubame intercepted him.

"You slipped and fell that way?" She giggled, amused to no end by the expressions flitting across the man's face in earnest.

"Exactly. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a kouhai to torment." Aoba tapped his nose and walked out the main door, bells jingling on his way out.

Tsubame smiled fondly as yet another of Konoha's unusual characters pottered out her bakery door. She was fond of Aoba, but knew better than to ask him for what she had in mind. While it was difficult to tell due to his sunglasses, even Tsubame could read his stiffness the few times Naruto had been in his presence. While never unkind, the man excused himself quickly and tried hard to never gain the boy's attention.

It was because of reactions like this, from good people who were cruel to so few, that Tsubame had forced herself to stop judging everyone purely on their treatment of Naruto.

Tsubame had boiled it down in her mind to the possibility of one thing only: the boy's parents must have done something awful. She had heard of an Orochimaru who had experimented on children, and about how his student had been a pariah for some time afterwards because of the pain he caused those whose children had been kidnapped. A pariah of pain and suffering rather than true hatred, for the most part.

It fit their treatment of Naruto too, at any rate.

No, it was better to wait. Wait the day through, and if that failed, go looking for a shinobi less affected by whatever it was Naruto had been dragged into.

"My team has only men." The statement pulled Tsubame out of her musing to focus on the shinobi who came to her bakery almost every day with the same sentence spoken every time.

"I remember, Shimon-san. What do you say to an apple tart with cheddar crumble topping?" Tsubame grinned easily, pulling out the tart she had made especially for this almost daily request.

Shimon Hijiri was a member of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force. Shimon, along with four other men, they handled the majority of offences the village endured.

"Please." He nodded eagerly, happy to bring back something that would be well-received in a group of men that apparently tortured people for a living.

"Actually, Shimon-san, I have a question for you." Tsubame asked on the spur of the moment, despite knowing little about the man other than his name.

"Yes?" Tsubame smiled, she had almost been expecting him to answer with 'my team has only men'.

"My neighbour had a problem recently, someone broke into his house. Completely wrecked the place." Tsubame paused to make sure he was listening, he nodded and she continued.

"He's only a kid, barely more than a baby. The village doesn't like him much though, and the police won't do anything. I'm worried this will happen again. Is there some kind of shinobi house protection thing I can do to stop people from doing this?" Tsubame asked, giving enough information for Shimon to make an educated guess as to who she was speaking about, but little enough for him not to respond.

"If you can afford it, pay for a sealing mission. Nobody will help without money, but some will for it." Shimon answered shortly, but with more feeling than he usually interacted with her.

"And I can get these missions in the Hokage tower?" Tsubame asked quickly, sensing the shinobi's need to leave but still not quite understanding how it is the channels of the shinobi world operated.

"Yes." The man flitted out of the room, weaving through the thronged square quickly and disappearing in an an instant. Parents were flocking outside to collect their precious children from murderer school.

"He's an odd duck." Tsubame smiled fondly after the unusual man who was determined to interact with civilians as little as possible.

A lot of shinobi were like that, terrified of civilians in their own way. They had no idea how to treat people who didn't deal with death as closely as they did, experienced less of the world's extreme levels of cruelty (for the most part) and most of all they were terrified of hurting civilians who meant no harm. Excluding the sadists, of which there were many, of course.

As it turned out, other than the Academy children, no shinobi walked into Tsubame's bakery for the remainder of the day. No non-retired shinobi at any rate, but Tsubame found it difficult to request anything of those old, wrinkled and terrifying enough to live the shinobi life through to old age.

And so, after sending Naruto, Chouji and Shikamaru away with a small box of cream puffs, Tsubame walked uncertainly towards the large tower than stood not a few feet from her bakery for the first time.

She had never had any reason to go there herself, she rarely undertook anything that she couldn't handle without help and had thus far not needed an extra set of hands or help around the bakery. That was what clones were for.

"Oh, Ms. Tsubame was it?" The tone was clear-cut, cold and efficient. Tsubame had never been so happy to come face to face with the most derisive of the Hokage's secretaries in all her life. The same man that had allowed her to finalize her placement in Konoha was the same man sneering at her in familiarity.

"Yes sir. I was hoping to request a mission." Tsubame answered formally, bowing respectfully as she had been taught so her hair fell in front of her shoulders just so.

"Finding it difficult to run the bakery by yourself?" The man scoffed, pushing his glasses up the ridge of his nose.

"No sir. This is regarding some difficulties my neighbour has been having. He is underage and his home has been broken into and ransacked. I was hoping to hire somebody to ensure this wouldn't happen again." Tsubame explained, pleased when the vague respect she had earned during their first interaction returned to the man's eyes.

"Hm, I felt it was odd for you to fail so quickly, considering your preparation. You are looking for a seal user in this case, a low-level one should do. Any requirements?" He shuffled a few papers around on his desk for a while before beginning an illegible scrawl across a piece of paper.

"Someone open-minded would be appreciated. I am afraid my little neighbour is not very well liked, for reasons beyond my understanding." Tsubame hinted, watching as the man's hold on his pen tightened and relaxed quickly, his eyes gaining and losing a steely glint. This was why Tsubame had been happy to see this man in particular, despite possibly disliking Naruto, he would undoubtedly perform his job. He seemed to enjoy pure perfection to a degree most employers would be delighted to see in their employees.

Tsubame shouldn't have much of a problem with this request.

"Address of intended home?" He asked tightly, and Tsubame recited the apartment block and number easily, feeling a little guilt for stressing the competent secretary but not enough to risk Naruto's safety.

"This, _Naruto_, as an orphan is under legal guardianship of the orphanage he was stationed with. And as such, you are incapable of requesting a mission tampering with someone's home in this village without legal consent." The secretary sighed, moving a few papers around on his desk again nervously before speaking again.

"This is _not _due to any prejudice I may have. These are simply the rules." He said stiffly, as Tsubame rolled her eyes to the heavens but consented.

"Of that, I am already aware. But he doesn't _have_ any contact with any orphanage in the city. One kicked him out a few years back, and Naruto talks a lot about some 'Jiji', but I have yet to meet him face to face." Tsubame scratched her arm uneasily as the secretary took this information into consideration.

"Referencing the information from the orphanages will take some time, I hope you realise. And you will be required to acquire the information yourself. If all ties to the orphanage have been cut, then a legal guardian has been named. If you find this guardian, and get written permission from them to perform this task, there will be no problems." Kami bless the man, he had the grace to look irritated by the inefficiency of the village documentation system.

A door behind the desk at which the secretary was stationed, in a room full of other desks with secretaries dealing with different customers, clicked. An old man, wizened and smiling benignly, eased his way through the open door. He was wearing the same unusual pointed hat Tsubame had seen the man Naruto had proclaimed as 'Jiji' wearing on his first day at the Academy.

"I hear someone is trying to protect our village's number one mischief maker, Eiji?" The elder smiled winningly at the secretary, whose name Tsubame had only just realised she hadn't known. The word 'Secretary' simply fit the man too well to actually require any other name.

"Y-Yes, Hokage-sama! I have all the initial documentation here, but extra is required from the child's guardian to-" The sec-Eiji, Tsubame reminded herself, was cut off by the man who was apparently the Hokage himself. She kept her mouth shut, knowing that the surprise was showing on her face but not wanting to accentuate it with the disbelieving words threatening to tumble from her mouth.

"There will be no need for that. I removed him from the orphanage's care myself. If I may speak to you in private, Miss-?" Old Sarutobi turned his overly-wise smile at the young baker, whose heart was hammering in her chest harder than it had any right to. She _hadn't_ done anything wrong, but faced with the leader of the world's most accomplished shinobi village, all she could think of was that one time she 'accidentally' kicked a governess' fat cat, and knocked over a display outside a shinobi weaponry shop and ran for it because Teiko-sensei would have killed her for being late to a practice session.

"Tsubame, Hokage-sama." There, she could say that much without stuttering at least. Tsubame willed her shaking legs to follow the old patriarch, who was still smiling as if her presence was that of a visiting grandchild. It was as unnerving as a glare would have been.

"So, you are this _neighbour-neechan_ I have been hearing so much about. Judging from the surprise on your face, I have little doubt that Naruto did not tell you who _I_ am either. He has a talent for it, talking incessantly but revealing little information." Sarutobi chuckled, walking further across the office that looked out over the entire village. Tsubame remained where she was, a few feet from the door, despite the fact that running would do her little good whether this visit was benign or detrimental to her future health.

"No, Hokage-sama. But that is part of his charm, in a sense." Tsubame couldn't relax, she could barely remember a time when her spine was ramrod-straight to the point that she was unable to slouch even if she had wanted to.

"Naruto adores you. You know that." His tone had changed now, still kindly on the surface, but hard enough for remnants of the man he used to be to leak through.

Tsubame chose to stay quiet, not sure what to say or how to say it.

"Not many are fond of his company. You are new to this village, so you do not know the reason." The Hokage began, and Tsubame perked up, believing she was finally going to be getting some answers.

"And nor will you. By my mouth, at least." Tsubame wilted visibly, allowing the Hokage his moment of amusement at her expense.

"And you care for the boy too, I feel. Naruto is good at avoiding those who wish him harm, he has had practice. Especially regarding civilians, there are few of you who possess the skill to fool each other, let alone a shinobi. I can read your face well, girl." He sighed and sat in the large cushioned chair, his back to the village.

"I have heard of you too, from a few members of the Uchiha Military Police, just this morning. New to the village, new to our ways, new to our life. I'm worried that you will succumb to these ways when you learn more about our Naruto." The Hokage intertwined his fingers, lacing them around each other, and balanced his chin on the lattice easily.

"With all due respect Hokage-sama, here's what I think," Tsubame says and her voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into her voice like whispers of truth. "I think maybe everybody falls," she says. "I think maybe we all do. And I don't think that's the question." She pulled on her arms gently to make sure she was till making sense. "I think the question is whether we get back up again. _How_ we get back up again."

"So you believe that, even if you belief is shaken a little, there is very little that could be done to remove you from Naruto's side?" The Hokage repeated, a lot more elegantly than how Tsubame had managed to phrase it, but when she nodded he smiled.

"That is good to hear, and I will hold you to that in the future. Remember this feeling and hold it close." Sarutobi glanced out the window, down at the village whose life was beginning to dwindle in the evening hours.

"A lot of shinobi don't understand the simple concepts, you know. It's not that you should never love something so much that it can control you. It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled. It's not a weakness. It's your best strength." Sarutobi turned his old gaze on Tsubame once more, any hint of malice gone from his face. Not that this was any relief in the world of shinobi, where blank faces reigned supreme.

"I will order the mission myself. Go home before Naruto arrives, he can only bring himself to intrude on the Akimichi household for so long." The Hokage waved her out of the room, and Tsubame took the order eagerly and stumbled on her way out.

"So?"

She had almost been unprepared for Eiji's distinctly uncaring voice, but she managed to prevent herself from jumping too badly.

"Yeah. It's all good. It's-yeah." Tsubame ran her fingers through her hair, once, twice, three times before making eye contact with the secretary who was blatantly not taking another customer until she had left the Hokage's office.

"There is tea available in the canteen down the hall on the right. Most civilians are in desperate need of it after a meeting with a man like the Hokage." Eiji shuffled the papers on his desk once more, crisply before barking 'next!' at a crockety old man carrying a battered-looking urn for whatever reason.

The agonized expression on the secretary's face told Tsubame that unusual characters were probably quite common in the mission room, especially with pointless requests.

"Thanks, Eiji. I'll do that." Tsubame took several deep breaths as she walked away, missing Eiji's slight twitch of surprise at the mention of his name, and barrelling towards the promised tea.

Hopefully, with any luck, there would be chamomile.

* * *

Could one define "plan" as "a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures, held together by panic, indecision, and ignorance"? If so, then sealing Naruto's apartment was a very good plan.

Tsubame held her hand miserably in the clinic after being burned by Naruto's apartment door handle. Evidently, the seal user who had trapped Naruto's home had not intended for anyone except Naruto to be able to enter or leave the room.

Apparently she would no longer be cleaning up after him before he comes home from playing with Chouji and Shikamaru anymore.

And exactly one day before the dance her company were to perform for the entire village, she had scalded the palm of her hand, quite badly too. Teiko-sensei was going to kill her.

"I thought I told you to stop doing that," The doctor snapped at the shinobi who was guarding one of the rooms to the far left. He had long since taken to assuming an array of different henge to amuse himself.

A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?"

"Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast."

A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching face looked unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job."

"Your job is to prevent anyone entering this room without authority. No more, no less."

The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment."

The doctor snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten the patients here to death."

The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When they pass alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious."

"But you just looked that way to me!"

"The contradiction being...?"

The doctor sighed, kneading his temple with his right hand for a moment before turning to face the waiting room full of amused patients.

"Is there a Miss Tsubame here?" The doctor was young, with sharp angular features and scythe-shaped eyebrows. His hair was too long to appear professional in a hospital, but he didn't seem to care much.

Tsubame acquiesced, stood and followed the doctor to the examination room he had motioned to. His family name had been on the door, Akibara.

"How on earth did you manage to do this to yourself?" He tsked as he prodded Tsubame's palm softly.

"Er, I burned myself on my neighbour's seals... the door handle." Tsubame admitted, not willing to say that the seals in place had been her idea originally, there was only a certain level of idiocy one was capable of descending to without losing total respect.

"Those shinobi _are_ a menace. I trained as one originally, didn't have the temperament. Decided to be a medic instead." The man pulled some gauze off a shelf, along with a little tub of fruit-smelling goo.

"Some of them aren't too bad... But others?" Tsubame pointed knowingly in the direction the shinobi of a million henge outside the door, causing the doctor to roll his eyes in agreement.

"Shinobi like that, their lives are a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal." He said cruelly, but undoubtedly meaning every word he said. Giving up the life of a field shinobi must come with its own price.

"Can't say I'd know. What do you think, I've got a dance I've got to do tomorrow at the festical. Any chance my hand can operate well enough for an ex-kunoichi not to notice by then?" Tsubame tried hopefully, pleading in her head that there would be a chance. There was no doubt in her mind that she was going to dance, but whether the quality would be up to Teiko-sensei's standards with this hand was another story altogether.

"Hm, you must be part of that lady's dance theatre, what was her name?" Akibara wondered aloud, smoothing the paste over Tsubame's hands as he spoke.

"Teiko-sensei?"

"Yes that was it! I was a trainee when she came in five years ago after the Kyuubi attack, nice lady." He stated, and Tsubame remained quiet in hopes that he would answer her question and in fear she would contradict his opinion of Teiko's being nice.

"Yes, yes. Once I get my chakra flowing through this paste it'll be healed right up in a jiffy. A bit tender, but you should be able to perform with no trouble." Akibara waved his hand impatiently.

This was how Tsubame discovered the wonder that is shinobi medics. Her burn, severe as it was, indeed only remained on her skin for a short while. It was as if for a moment Akibara's hands had glowed green, and then, poof, her hand was perfect.

Maybe that was why, in her excitement for what she had considered to be magic, she said yes. Or maybe it was his unusual eyebrows and generally cranky disposition, her father had been a cranky man and she had grown to love the humour of grumps.

Maybe Tsubame had simply wanted to make a new mark on the village, another chapter for her story. But Tsubame was not one to turn down a coffee from a man who had asked respectfully and not unkindly.

He would be a remarkably suitable new friend, his malicious humour and berating of the shinobi guard at the door said as much.

Tsubame smiled easily as she walked towards the dance theatre to practice for tomorrow. The joy of knowing she was not in fact going to be dismembered upon her arrival was unparalleled. The anticipation of how Teiko was going to berate her today, without an obvious angle, was rising though.

"Sweet Kami, you spoiled brat, you cannot possibly hope to have everything you want!" Teiko shrieked upon catching sight of Tsubame trying to perfect a jump, there was an eastern almost unpronounceable name for it, and having varying success.

"I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?"

It was good to be back.


End file.
